The nervous passenger

The day was December 26, 1999.  My brother David & I decide to venture to the mall for some boxing day shopping.  It had snowed on Christmas the day before but weather appeared to be in check, so we headed out in his little white mazda pick-up truck.  We were 2 minutes away from home when going over a hill, we lost control on some black ice & ended up in the ditch.

That day feels like it was yesterday, 13 year old me, with no control over what is about to happen & just hoping I didn't die.  Clearly we didn't die, we were totally fine & my parents came to get us and really it was no big deal but that really was the turning point for my control issues.

The habits I have now formed when being a passenger in the car relate to that day & to my mothers passenger nerves.  As I discussed here , my mom has a lot of anxieties & OCD's that I have inherited and this is a major one.  It wasn't until I began driving & began being a passenger in my friends vehicle, that I realized the depth of this issue.

The reality is, when I am in a vehicle and not driving, I cannot hold back any thoughts that come to my mind.  Following to closely? You will hear it.  Awful lane change?  You will know.  Speeding excessively?  I will tell you before a cop gets the chance to.  Whatever the situation is, I can't not tell you when I feel like you are driving badly or dangerously.

Hubby is the main 'beneficiary' of my attacks, since we drive together the most.  I hate this habit because it is one of the few times him & I actually fight.  We have screaming matches in the car because I can't shut my mouth.  I have to say I have gotten 100 times better than I used to be, really going over in my head if it is worth vocalizing my thought but it still happens.  I like to think I am responsible for saving our lives 2-3 times, the rest he had the situation under control.

Hubby demonstrating his stellar driving skills

Now back to my mom & the inheritance of this issue.  I have been lucky enough to have my own vehicle from a young age, so the amount of driving I had to do with my mom & for my mom was quite minimal, but there are those times when I will drive her around and it is clear to me where my vocal passenger syndrome came from.

She checks your blind spot, she yells when brake lights come on ahead, she has to comment on your speed, she gasps...at everything, the list is endless.  She is way worse then me when it comes to this, since I now have somewhat of a control on this issue but the apple doesn't fall far from the tree on this one.  When I was growing up I spent a lot of time in the car with my parents, driving to and from my brothers hockey games, so I think that is when it began getting ingrained because even I have moments where I was like "whoa.  that was my mother" when I say something to hubby in the car.

The car is the only place I generally would have full-on panic attacks.  If we come close to hitting someone, or the weather is bed, my body goes into full anxiety mode, and will linger with me for a very long time.  If we come close to say rear-ending someone, I will not be able to breathe properly until we are out of the car, or about half hour, whichever comes sooner, and then that moment replays in my mind for quite some time.  It was in the car that I really began to recognize my anxiety, the feelings associated with it & my issues that I did have.

It all comes down to being a control freak in the car.  When I am in the drivers seat, I have no problems, since I am in control, but put me in the passenger seat & I lose all control (physically & mentally).  I think between the behaviours I inherited from so many years in the car with my mom, partnered with that ditch incident where the 'control' was out of my hands, I have turned into the definition of nervous passengers.

M.I.A.

So I feel like i've been M.I.A. lately.  When I get 5 minutes to sit down, the last thing I have been thinking about is blogging.

I just wanted to touch in to let everyone know I plan on getting back into the blogging more faithfully very soon.  I have been off work sick, away on weekends, have an exam coming up on saturday & just all around busy so I am finding no time to juggle all my 'to do' list.

Coming up later this week, I will touch more on my weekend reveal but starting next week I will get back into the regular postings.  My hair progress has not changed, so I need to continue to do this in hopes of assisting with my recovery.

Please be patient with me & come back soon!

Weekend Reveal: The Nervous Passenger

Hubby wishes this existed in real life.

The title says it all.  I hate being the passenger in a car.  I am nervous, annoying & have to verbalize every thought that comes through my mind when I am in the passenger in a car. 

Come back later this week to find out more about my passenger seat anxiety & the root of this problem.

Thank god it's friday.

                       
I have had an insanely overwhelming & busy week. This is going to be a quick update as a I have a big meeting in about an hour, but wanted to post before the weekend was upon us.

I am on day 4 of my Intra Force 10 day hair system.  I am digging it so far.  To say if it is has made any changes yet, is too early, but I have been taking pictures of the top of my head & maybe after the 10 days, and viewing the pictures, it will be a more obvious way to see if there has been results.

My pulling has been decent this week.  Yesterday afternoon I felt a little out of control & like it wouldn't stop, but I am becoming more and more aware of it.  I vacuumed my car (which had hair everyone), so I could start from scratch with the hair accumulation in my car & I am throwing the hairs out of the window.  This has been another task that has helped to keep me aware of when I am doing since I am an a/c girl & every time I pull a hair it requires rolling down the window.

I have an issue with pulling the front pieces of my hair, and they look very dry and dead.  Last night I pulled one side back in a bobby pin and managed to not pull the one side I put in the bobby pin so I am going to try this tactic today to see if bobby pinning the front accessible pieces may decrease my number of pulls.

I am starting to notice an increase in followers & viewers of this blog, which excites me.  Leave a comment let me know who you are, what you struggle with and if there is anything you'd like to hear more of or see more of in the blog!

Enjoy your weekend everyone :)  Hubby has a baseball tournament so I am looking forward to another weekend away from the chaos.

Come back Sunday for my weekend reveal.

The Last Bite

Strategic eating.  It sounds silly when I write it that way but it is something I definitely do, and all the time.  After yesterdays post, you hopefully got an idea how much I love food so you won't be surprised at my obsession with the last bite.

Since I love food so much, it is always important for me to finish a meal with the taste and sensation of the best part of that meal. 

The reason I included the McChicken in my reveal post because it is the best example I can give people of a perfect last bite and the reasoning behind it.  When I eat a McChicken there is a very strategic process.  I begin to eat the sandwich like any regular sandwich, but around the half way mark it starts to get strategic for me.  As I get to the middle, I begin working my bites around the edge of the McChicken.  Once I have all the outer crust hangovers eaten, there is about 2-3 bites left, this is when I assess the remaining sandwich for lettuce & McChicken sauce distribution.  The last thing I would ever want is to finish a McChicken on the edge.   A McChicken must be finished on a bite that has equal distribution of the ingredients.  This guarantees that my last bite is going to be the most satisfying bite, with the taste and experience of the McChicken lingering in my mouth even after the sandwich is done.

I could give examples all day of different last bites, like how my last bite of a frosted mini wheats has to be 2 overly frosted bites, that I have put aside and avoided the entire bowl..they must also be upside down on the spoon.   Or how my last bite of a pizza slice has to be a bite that includes crust, sauce & cheese so I get all parts of the pizza in one final bite.  Or my favourite meal of Parmesan Chicken Bowties at Jack Astors....strategically finding a good size piece of chicken, 2 noodles with a bunch of sauce on it & stacking perfectly on my fork for one last hurrah in my mouth!

Jack Astor's Parmesan Chicken Bowties.  My favourite meal ever. 

When I am half-way through my meal, that is when I make the determination what part of the meal is satisfying me the most, which flavours I am enjoying the most, and I ensure that will be my last bite.  Below is a good picture to show what my plate may look like before my last bite.  If I was having a meal and the meat, and potatoes and veggies were all working equally for me, i'd put equal parts to the side & ensure on one final fork bit (...no I would not have an ENTIRE potato like below), I would have my last bite.

Last Bite Contender

Hubby is now able to spot my last bite & will sometimes steal my last bite and literally RUIN my meal.  Even when he fakes taking it when he sees it put to the side, he still raises my anxiety levels.  I love food so when I am eating I mean business, it is not something I do because you need to eat to survive, it is an activity I thoroughly enjoy.  The different textures, the different flavours, the whole experience is really one that brings me happiness.

Even though I know this is a little obsessive, it is truly important to me to walk away from every meal feeling satisfied.  The only way to ensure that is by strategically choosing my last bite & ensuring when I walk away from that meal, the last bite I took was the best bite.

Family Ties

I have talked about my family briefly before (here) but thought it might be of interest to give a little more detailed background on my life.

My parents were married on October 6, 1973. They met while my dad was playing hockey in Milton, Ontario.   They came from such different places -  my mother immigrated to Canada from Italy when she was 4 & my dad is from a small town in northern Ontario.  My mom has always held a steady job our whole lives, while my dad is an entrepreneurial spirit who has never really held a steady job & always strived to give his family more.

My parents & Derek - so much suede happening
Thanks google images!

I was the youngest of 3 kids and we could not have been any different from each other.  My oldest brother Derek is 9 years older than me and he is "the smart one".  He was a professional student for many years, until finding his groove as a film editor.  He is an avid movie buff, a fantastic cook, and one of the funniest people I know.  My second brother David is 5 years older than me and he was "the jock".  He was a natural born athlete, excelling at hockey, baseball & golf and is also up there as one of the funniest people I know.  He now welds for a living & has created the love of my life (aside from hubby), my niece Ava.

On the whole, we have a 'normal' family life.  We are very close, we get together for dinner's on the regular, and sometimes we fight.  That is normal right?

Since everyone knows OCD and anxiety are genetic, you have to assume that it is not just me who has a few screws loose when it comes to mental health issues in my family...and you would be right.  I am probably the one who suffers from the most issues, but I also think I am the only one who really is comfortable accepting and being open with all my crazies. 

We have VERY addictive personalities.  We love what we love, and we can't get enough of it.  We all share one similar addiction/obsession but i'll get to that at the end.

I will start with my dad.  My dad used to be an alcoholic, thankfully I am too young to remember since he has been sober now for 25 years.  Alcoholism is a root of OCD & anxiety, and as much as I think I take after my mom, I know the root of it likely comes to from my dad's side.  I have 2 cousins on his side that also suffer from anxiety and there is a long history of addiction issues with his family.  After he kicked the booze, my dad found a new addiction in Pepsi.  I can recall as a child the side table by my dads chair having about 20 cans on it from that day of pepsi drinking (yes he has diabetes now). 

My mom suffers from similar OCD & anxieties that I suffer from, and a lot of my habits have been picked up from her.  I haven't spoken about a lot of them yet (coming up in weekend reveals), but on top of the ones I share with her, my mom is also an obsessive cleaner, and a closet hoarder.

Derek is by far the least 'crazy' of us all.  He isn't very obsessive about anything(except the family obsession), he has an impeccable memory for dates, which I think is a bit of a branch of OCD, but nothing major.  As a teenager he did have all his VHS taped movies categorized, numbered and then a separate book that would index them, but otherwise there isn't much crazy when it comes to him. 

David I think is the most closeted crazy in our family.  He is a total neat freak, which blows my mind considering how he was growing up. Now, he has a cleaning schedule, like "fridays at 4pm I clean the baseboards".   I don't know if he recognizes it but he is obsessed with routine, schedules & timing.  He grocery shops the same time every week, if a BBQ is at 4, he shows up at 2:30 and then texts you every 10 minutes until you are there...at 4.  He also is a pantry-loader & a label facer.  The first time I walked in their cold cellar, I was stunned by the organization & quantities, and his wife confirming it was him that did this. 

We all have our little bits of OCD & anxieties that make us who we are but ....

There is the family addiction...our obsession and weakness that plagues us all.

F O O D

I can honestly say we are all addicted to food.  I am not exaggerating, it is a constant obsession - when eating, we have no shut off, we eat and eat and eat, until we are ready to explode and we love every single minute of it.  When we aren't eating, we are thinking about eating.  Food is what we do.

I honestly wish I could remember more about food growing up, but I do know there was never a limit.  I know I have always loved it and always eaten beyond my means.  My mom being from Italy where they came from very little, has always had that European mentality of "EAT EAT", and it is one of the outlets for her to show love and feel like she is taking care of us.

You would think my family would be all 300+ pounds.  We all struggle with our weight, some more than others.  I was always fat, and only in the last 5 years have had successes with controlling my weight and being a normal size.  My dad is overweight, like unhealthy overweight, and has no self control EVER with food.  My mom has always been the healthier of the bunch but she struggles also.  Derek was always just a big guy, he is very tall and was always thick.  In the last year, he has dropped almost 40lbs and looks incredible.  David then takes the cake (no pun intended) for the worst eater.  He is an absolute food-aholic.  I cannot even begin to give you guys a picture of what he is capable of eating.  He is the most yo-yo with his weight, but generally resides on the overweight side of the spectrum.

At any given family event, we will have a pasta dish, pizza, potatoes, 2-3 different kinds of meat, potatoe or pasta salad, and then a minimum of 3 different kinds of desserts.  It still never ceases to amaze hubby how much my family can eat.  We all have a love affair with food, and I could write all day about food and the effect it has on our family.  I am in a happy place just thinking of eating.

Some of the greatest family memories are from the last 5 years when we have all moved out, and come back and laughed around my parents table, stuffing our faces and leaving wanting to puke. 

We all may be a little bit crazy, but at least we are not alone.

A random bag

I'd say my progress has been virtually at a stand still this week.  I have days where I do very little pulling & it feels like a success, then the next day, I do a task or activity that ends with a lot of pulling.  This post is going to be totally random but I just sort of feel like talking about a few different things in my life.

I picked up that 50 shades of grey book everyone has been ranting & raving about. 

I know I am supposed to be reading my Brain Lock book but I'm a pretty quick reader so thought it wouldn't hurt to pick it up and see if I enjoyed it.  This book is seriously SOOO good, like could not put it down good.  I had to say I was surprised with how few sex scenes there actually were, I thought it would be like every other page was a new crazy sex-capade, but instead it has such an interesting underlying story.  People are so focused on the fact she is quite explicit with the wording & their sexual encounters, but that is seriously not the good part of this book.  I have to say it went in a totally different direction than I had anticipated, but it was really really good.

I have decided I am not going to buy book #2 or #3 until I have the time to commit to reading them, because I have this feeling, they will consume my life much like this one did.

Now that this book is done and I can resume my regular life, I started my intra force 10 day treatment.  Can't comment on it much yet, since it has only been one day, but my scalp felt super tingly & I'm happy to report it didn't have a negative effect in terms of making my hair look/feel different once styling so I am excited to see what kind of results I can get.  

Last week I went to the hair dresser & she said I likely could stretch out the treatment and not need to use the entire bottle in one day, and she was right.  I was VERY generous with the treatment and I didn't even use half of a little bottle so I think this 10 day treatment is more like a 20, maybe even 30 day treatment.  If it works really well, I'm going to do it for 20 days to kick start, then go from there.

I began to take pictures of the top of my head so I can have a better gauge on if it makes an actual difference.  My hair dresser & I were joking that next time I come in I am going to have this dense, thick upper part of my head, and stringy bottom half from the surge in regrowth.  Sorta something like the image below, but a lot less 80's.

                                                      

Even if I wanted that style, I can already tell the time it would take to achieve is not conducive my schedule.